Rebekah Brooks is believed to be among 11 suspects in the phone-hacking scandal facing criminal charges after police sent their first set of files to prosecutors.

Sources said the former News International chief executive is listed with three other journalists, one police officer and six others in documents handed to the director of public prosecutions.

Keir Starmer QC must now decide whether to go ahead with prosecutions based on police evidence handed to him within the last fortnight.

Starmer said he was facing "very difficult and sensitive decisions" as he predicted more cases were coming his way.

The DPP refused to formally identify who faced charges, saying only that not everyone in the files had been formally arrested.

But sources said details of the files included:

Brooks and six other members of the public with relation to alleged offences of perverting the course of justice.

A journalist, understood to be ex-News of the World chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, accused of witness intimidation and harassment.

A journalist and a police officer accused of misconduct in a public office and Data Protection Act breaches.

A journalist in relation to alleged offences under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

The announcement comes just days before Brooks, her racehorse trainer husband Charlie, former PR Cheryl Carter and four other suspects answer bail relating to allegations of perverting the course of justice.

Thurlbeck, who has also been held on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications, is the only Operation Weeting-related suspect to have been questioned on suspicion of witness intimidation. He is also due to answer bail next week.

All 43 people arrested under the various operations into illegal activities among journalists remain on bail, Starmer added.

Britain's top prosecutor said his new guidelines setting out how journalists may have broken the law would help lawyers with the "very difficult decisions".

"The decisions we are going to make are going to be extremely difficult and extremely sensitive," he said.

"We have got to make a decision because these cases are coming. We cannot duck that... These just happen to be the four files we have got, there may be others. We don't know."

Police launched Weeting, the inquiry devoted specifically to phone hacking, after receiving "significant new information" from News International on January 26 last year.

Elveden was launched months later after officers were given documents suggesting News International journalists made illegal payments to police officers.

The files handed to prosecutors are also understood to cover three other operations, the Sasha perverting the course of justice inquiry, Kilo, an inquiry into police leaks, and Tuleta, the investigation into computer-related breaches.

Under Operation Kilo - the inquiry into police leaks from Operation Weeting - Guardian reporter Amelia Hill was questioned last year under caution.

A CPS spokeswoman said later: "We are not prepared to discuss the identities of those involved or the alleged offences in any greater detail at this stage as a number of related investigations are ongoing.

"We are unable to give any timescale for charging decisions, except to say that these cases are being considered very carefully and thoroughly, and the decisions will be made as soon as is practicable."

Metropolitan Police figures showed that there were 829 potential victims of phone hacking, of whom 231 were said to be uncontactable.

The scandal has already led to the closure of the News of the World after 168 years, prompted a major public inquiry, and forced the resignation of Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson and his assistant John Yates.

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Abu Qatada smiles as he is re-arrested at his home in Wembley, West London. (Photo credit: London Media)

The shortlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction at The English PEN literary cafe, London Book Fair, Earl's Court, London. (Photo credit: Lewis Whyld/PA Wire)

Sale room porter Jacqueline Sevcik holds an Indian sword at Bonhams Auctioneers on April 17, 2012 in London, England. The late 19th century sword is estimated at £600 - 800, US$ 940 - 1,300 and forms part of the Antique Arms and Armour sale to be held on April 18, 2012 in London. (Photo credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

A rose, symbol of the Norwegian Labour movement, is placed at a security fence outside Oslo courthouse on April 17, 2012, on the second day of the trial of of Right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik. Breivik launched into his testimony today, as he seeks to explain why he killed 77 people in twin attacks in Norway last July. Five and a half days have been allotted to Breivik's testimony, and many fear he will try to promote his Islamophobic ideology, which he claims justifies the 'cruel but necessary' attacks. (Photo credit: DANIEL SANNUM LAUTEN/AFP/Getty Images)

Syrian actress Fadwa Sulaiman, poses with a "STOP" sign, as a way to protest peacefully against violence in Syria, in Paris, France. The protest is part of an action called 'White Wave' ('Vague Blanche') that will take place in Paris on April 17, day of the Syrian Independence, with Mayor of Paris and other personalities joining. Fadwa Suleiman took part actively in the Syrian revolution and became an icon after appearing on TV addressing demonstrators in Homs, then she had to leave Syria and came to Paris. (Photo credit: PA)

Benji Marshall of the Kiwis passes during the New Zealand Kiwis training session at North Harbour Stadium on April 17, 2012 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo credit: Phil Walter/Getty Images)

Models display creations by Belarusian designers during a lingerie fashion show in the city of Logoisk, some 30 km outside Minsk. (Photo credit: VICTOR DRACHEV/AFP/Getty Images)

Supporters of Taur Matan Ruak react as the former military chief easily wins over Francisco 'Lu Olo ' Guterres in the run-off Presidential elections on April 17, 2012 in Dili, East Timor. The vote comes at a crucial time when the new president will help steer the region's newest and poorest nation after U.N. peacekeeping troops begin their planned withdrawal later this year. (Photo credit: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

The Tokyo Sky Tree, the world's tallest TV tower and second-highest building, is seen in Tokyo on April 17, 2012. The 634-metre (2080-foot) new landmark in the Japanese capital was opened to the press before the grand opening on May 22. (Photo credit: TORU YAMANAKA/AFP/Getty Images)

Journalists walk toward the highest point of 451.2-metre on the 'Tembo Galleria' observatory of the Tokyo Sky Tree, the world's tallest TV tower and second-highest building, in Tokyo on April 17, 2012. The 634-metre (2080-foot) new landmark in the Japanese capital was opened to the press before the grand opening on May 22. (Photo credit: TORU YAMANAKA/AFP/Getty Images)

Eleven year old Afghan girl Tarana Akbari (R), plays with her sister and a brother after an interview with an AFP reporter at her home in Kabul on April 17, 2012. Down a rutted dirt alley in Old Kabul, the 'girl in the green dress', subject of AFP photographer Massoud Hossaini's Pulitzer-winning photograph, still has nightmares about the day a suicide bomber made her image world famous. Tarana Akbari no longer wears her best dress, which was drenched in her own blood and that of the 70 people who died around her at a religious festival at a shrine near her home on December 6, 2011. (Photo credit: SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images)

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A supporter cheers on Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as she visits her constituency on the occasion of festivities surrounding the country's new year in Kawhmu outside Yangon on April 17, 2012. Suu Kyi was elected in the recent April 1 parliamentary by-elections in a Kawhmu constituency. (Photo credit: Soe Than WIN/AFP/Getty Images)

Aldrin Mallari, country director of Fauna and Flora international, looks at a preserved specimen of two new species of frogs found in Southern Leyte province, during its unveiling ceremony in Manila on April 17, 2012. Two new forest frog species have been discovered by scientists who surveyed a severely degraded forest in the central Philippine island of Leyte in November 2011. (Photo credit: TED ALJIBE/AFP/Getty Images)

Palestinian protesters burn an Israeli flag during rally in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners held in Israel in Gaza City on April 17, 2012. Some 1,200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails have begun a hunger strike and another 2,300 are refusing food for one day, according to a spokeswoman for the Israel Prisons Service (IPS) as Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza Strip were marking Prisoners' Day in solidarity with the 4,700 Palestinian inmates of Israeli jails. (Photo credit: MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images)

A creation by Steve Wheen is displayed in via Tortona during the 2012 Milan Design Week on April 17, 2012 in Milan, Italy. (Photo credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)